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OK, after watching True Grit and several old Sergio Leone western movies over the last few days, I'm practically itching to get into Deadlands Reloaded. So, I went on a little shopping spree on DriveThruRPG.com and got myself... everything that has Deadlands Reloaded written on its cover!

I'm now slowly devouring the Player's Guide and the Marshal's Handbook, and I like what I've read so far. Since I'm a veteran of Star Wars D6, concepts like the wild die and the point-buy character creation are easy enough to grasp, but I do have a few questions:

We'll be starting with Novice characters, to keep the number of Edges and Hindrances down to a manageable level. Novice characters appear to be quite competent right from the start, is this correct? How do they "feel" in actual play?

Concerning Edges and Hindrances: Are some of them seriously over- or underpowered? Any other pitfalls to watch out for?

Are maps and miniatures really necessary to play? I'm not against props on principle, but sometimes, it can be annoying to clear the table, and not every encounter can be prepared in advance.

Thanks in advance for your answers / opinions!

We play the 'classic' version of Deadlands... I'm not clear on the differences and I confess to not having thoroughly read the rules in detail.

The characters do feel very competent straight out of the gate... actually, a little too competent for my taste (I prefer something 'grittier').
So far no one in... two years of campaigning has come close to getting killed except for a couple of my characters, who I let die by refusing to spend chips to avoid damage. If I had my way I'd seriously cut back on how many chips a character can hang onto/spend in a session.

I haven't noticed edges/hindrances being overpowering... but I'm thinking they're somewhat open to interpretation by the GM/player.

We use a game mat and miniatures for larger/complicated battles but for stuff with just a few combatants we don't bother. I'm guessing you could totally get by without them.

Again, I'm not sure how the rules differ between classic and Reloaded... and how much of my experience rests on our GM/group's preferences.

When I joined up to play I too was hoping for Sergio Leone, with a bit of horror... instead it plays more like Brisco County Jr./Wild Wild West... crossed with F Troop... but that might just be our group.
In the future, if I ever run a Western game again I'll go with something a LOT less wacky.

Quote from: Todtsteltzer;456733OK, after watching True Grit and several old Sergio Leone western movies over the last few days, I'm practically itching to get into Deadlands Reloaded. So, I went on a little shopping spree on DriveThruRPG.com and got myself... everything that has Deadlands Reloaded written on its cover!

I'm now slowly devouring the Player's Guide and the Marshal's Handbook, and I like what I've read so far. Since I'm a veteran of Star Wars D6, concepts like the wild die and the point-buy character creation are easy enough to grasp, but I do have a few questions:

We'll be starting with Novice characters, to keep the number of Edges and Hindrances down to a manageable level. Novice characters appear to be quite competent right from the start, is this correct? How do they "feel" in actual play?

Concerning Edges and Hindrances: Are some of them seriously over- or underpowered? Any other pitfalls to watch out for?

Are maps and miniatures really necessary to play? I'm not against props on principle, but sometimes, it can be annoying to clear the table, and not every encounter can be prepared in advance.

Thanks in advance for your answers / opinions!

I play (but haven't GMd) savage worlds and think it is great for certain types of games. It definitely has a cinematic/heroic feel, so if you want something more mundane or naturalistic, you;d be better or with a different system or need to make some house rules for savage.

The thing to keep in mind with hindrances and edges is those bonuses are pretty substantial (even though they seem small on paper). This has improved rather than harmed our games. But you do need to keep in mind you aren't really making 1st level d&d characters here.

On that subject, the other thing is characters are meant to be pretty effective from the start. There isn't a 1-20 level scale in savage worlds. There is room for growth, but it the range of power is more narrow. So yes novices are still pretty good.

You don't need maps or miniatures to play, but they do help IMO.

One thing to watch out for is the exploding dice probabilities. I don't really have an issue with this, but some people are bothered by the fact that a d4 has a 1 in 4 chance of exploding (re-roll and add to total). This creates some unusual probabilities when compared with a d6 against certain target numbers. However the wild die is a factor that tends to round this out a bit. Still you can probably google and find a mountain of threads debating this subject.

If you are trying to shoot a bandit jumping from car to car on the top of a speeding train, from the back of your galloping horse, you don't need a map and miniatures. You do need edges, a wild die and bennies. ;)
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Quote from: Greentongue;456741If you are trying to shoot a bandit jumping from car to car on the top of a speeding train, from the back of your galloping horse, you don't need a map and miniatures. You do need edges, a wild die and bennies. ;)
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And a willing suspension of disbelief...

Quote from: Simlasa;456742And a willing suspension of disbelief...

I think that is a given when you accept a setting with walking dead.
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Yeah, much as I like Savage Worlds, if your intent is to do a game in a Sergio Leone style it may well not be the best system for you. Haven't played it but I've always seen this as being the kind of niche that Aces & Eights aims for.

Quote from: Greentongue;456743I think that is a given when you accept a setting with walking dead.
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Sure, but there are degrees... keep adding ridiculous stuff and you're bound to find your limit... or at some point you find yourself playing Toon... which is fine if that's what you want to be playing.

Quote from: Simlasa;456745Sure, but there are degrees... keep adding ridiculous stuff and you're bound to find your limit... or at some point you find yourself playing Toon... which is fine if that's what you want to be playing.

We have no problem with heroic / cinematic games. In fact, we're playing Exalted right now, so Deadlands will probably look and feel rather tame in comparison! :)

What's the word on the official Plot Point campaign, The Flood? Good, bad, rubbish?

I can only speak for classic Deadlands, and assume its no different with Reloaded, but the edges and hinderances are a mixed bag. I'm happy with that, as I can't stand level playing fields when it comes to characters.

Quote from: Greentongue;456741If you are trying to shoot a bandit jumping from car to car on the top of a speeding train, from the back of your galloping horse, you don't need a map and miniatures. You do need edges, a wild die and bennies. ;)
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I bought Deadlands Reloaded about two years ago and have yet to remove the shrink-wrap. But this totally makes me want to play right now.:)

Quote from: Grymbok;456744Yeah, much as I like Savage Worlds, if your intent is to do a game in a Sergio Leone style it may well not be the best system for you. Haven't played it but I've always seen this as being the kind of niche that Aces & Eights aims for.

I absolutely concur that SW would do a poor job of capturing the grittiness of spaghetti westerns, or most good westerns for that matter.

Deadlands is more of a gonzo western mashed up with steampunk and horror elements, which is the sort of thing to which SW lends itself particularly well -- freewheeling, over-the-top, physics-be-damned and gonzo.

For a "gritty western" game, I'd do it with BRP, but I keep hearing good things about A&8s.

I quite liked the system of the original deadlands, don't care at all for SW, and if I were to run a western today it would be Aces & Eights.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;456984I quite liked the system of the original deadlands, don't care at all for SW, and if I were to run a western today it would be Aces & Eights.

RPGPundit

Can you tell me a bit about Aces & Eights? How does the system work, what books do you need to play?

Quote from: Todtsteltzer;457060Can you tell me a bit about Aces & Eights? How does the system work, what books do you need to play?

It's D20 based.  The biggest gimmick for combat is that it uses a shot clock.  So essentially you pick a silhouette to match how your target is positioned, standing, ducking, laying flat.  Then you place the clock over them where you are trying to hit them.  Then you use dice and cards to determine where the shot actually lands.  This intern determines damage.  It actually works rather well, especially for shot guns.  It's a little clunky, compared to a simple roll.  But works well.

The other areas where it differentiates itself is that it has many many subsystems for modelling different aspects of western life from gambling, cattle drives, prospecting, etc.... So if you want to more accurately capture the mundane west it has rules to cover it.

Now despite it being D20 based.  It does gritty really well.

Do you mean D20, as in the system derived from D&D 3.0, or D20, as in an original system based on a, well, D20?

If it's the former, I guess I won't be able to sell this to my group because some of them have a rather irrational hatred of all things D20! Otherwise, it does sound a bit clunky and complicated, but also quite interesting.

Quote from: Todtsteltzer;457067Do you mean D20, as in the system derived from D&D 3.0, or D20, as in an original system based on a, well, D20?

If it's the former, I guess I won't be able to sell this to my group because some of them have a rather irrational hatred of all things D20! Otherwise, it does sound a bit clunky and complicated, but also quite interesting.

As in the system derived from D&D OGL.  But I find it feels less like OGL then Mutants and Masterminds does.  

Another option - though I've never played it - is Gunslingers and Gamblers.  It is, its own system based around rolling poker dice and the success/difficulty is based around poker hands.  link to a review (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14222.phtml)

There's also the BRP-based 'Aces High'... which, like Deadlands, includes some fantastical elements... but doesn't create an entire alt-history and has much less of a comic feel to it.

I like Savage Worlds well enough, but I like my Westerns without roaming undead so Deadlands never appealed to me.

That said, another good RPG for Westerns is Coyote Trail. It is very easy to learn and use. It can be used for gritty or spaghetti western types of games.

Savage Worlds is very wargamey in it's approach to play. It makes it great for giant shootouts and action heavy play(i.e. resolving a lot of combats quickly, or a large combat faster then most). Without 'trappings' the magic system is pretty generic. The combat is done tactical and quick, somewhere between Gurps and Warhammer 40k (the minis game).

It's great if you want your heroes to be significantly tougher/smarter/stronger then their opponents. It does a good job of separating the mooks from the key characters which might serve a Sergio Leone inspired game nicely.

That said, I have nothing to comment on Deadlands, having not really played or read it. Hopefully it has genre specific stuff like High Noon Duels and all that, which are not covered in the explorers edition.

I think the Sergio Leone style is all on you and your players more then the game system itself. I don't think A&8s is any more or less suited to a Sergio Leone style game then any other as that's more of a narrative style then a thing a set of resolution mechanics can come up with.

While I really appreciate the recomendations in this thread, I like what I'm reading in the Deadlands PDFs so far! The system appears to be easy to learn and encourages cinematic shenanigans, which is always a plus with my usual posse. Also, I know that at least two of the players will simply love the weird and gonzo stuff!

Well, there are quite extensive rules for duels (involving poker cards) and some shorthands to simulate longer games of poker - without having to play poker all night long. Not that there is anything wrong with that - except that I'm loosing all the time and could therefore never, ever convincingly portray a card shark. :)

I didn't like Savage Worlds the first time I played it. It was at a con and the game was run by the famous(?) Sean Patrick Fannon. The system wasn't explained well to me and it didn't make a lot of sense. I was also pretty anti-mini's at the time too.

Since then, I've played Savage Worlds quite a bit (my roommate is a HUGE Savage Worlds fan) and I've gotta say that the system works for just about anything. You don't even need mini's to run it either, but it does help in certain situations.

I've never played any incarnation of Deadlands, but the idea certainly appeals to me. I like Westerns, I like weird-apocalypse. I like steampunk. Shit, I play Rifts! So once I finish up my C&C Evil-Monster campaign and my roomies Sundered Skies campaign, I think I might pick up Deadlands.

I liked Savage Worlds reasonably from my recent campaign of Deadlands Reloaded, with the major exception of damage.  The minor hiccup of exploding dice probability didn't bother me, as you still always wanted the larger die.  The edges and hindrances had plenty of good choices along with some sucky ones.  

My beef with damage is that there is a strong death spiral - i.e. being hit means that you are immediately less effective, as opposed to just losing hit points.  The death spiral makes combats more anti-climactic, rather than having a rousing finish.  It also sucks to ride one as a PC, when getting unlucky early on means that you're likely to get worse and worse through the combat.  

If I play it again, I'd want to modify this somewhat.

Quote from: kryyst;457092As in the system derived from D&D OGL.  But I find it feels less like OGL then Mutants and Masterminds does.  

Yeah, I think it reaches the point of a misnomer to qualify it as D20. I think its more similar to AD&D than it is to D&D 3.5; and its not very similar to either.

RPGPundit

Savage Worlds is a pretty cool system, it's my Numba One game right now, but I have yet to play Deadlands Reloaded.  If you are going for a gritty kinda game, I don't know if I'd recommend it, but if you are going for a game where the desperado hangs up-side-down in the saddle while riding past villains givin' 'em both barrels ... yeah, that's the kinda stuff SavW is good for.

EDIT

Though the above might not be entirely recommended; while you /can/ do it, the fact that you're not taking cover during a gun fight /might/ come back to bite you, circumstances permitting.

If anything, I am impressed at the level of support Savage Worlds seems to get.  Also "Wiggy" Wade-Williams (former writer for PEG and now has his own gig at Triple Ace Games) is some sort of writing machine.

Quote from: jhkim;457199My beef with damage is that there is a strong death spiral - i.e. being hit means that you are immediately less effective, as opposed to just losing hit points.

That is one of the things I DID like about it... none of that nonsense where you rack up damage during a fight without any effect.
... of course, most everyone in our group chips their damage away, so it seldom grts to that point anyway.

My biggest beefs with Savage Worlds is that for the fast action pace that it tries to set we found that it did still get kind of bogged down in keeping track of all your abilities, this could be mitigated with action cards or even cue cards listing your special stuff.

Another issue we all generally had is that stats and skills aren't really linked.  It's purely an aesthetics thing but there seemed be no connection or reason as to why some things were stat based and others were skilled.  

Next on the list was the damage mechanic.  We were fine with the downward spiral effect.  The issue was how quickly it kicked in.  There was no real buffer.  Basically you are ok one minute then the pain starts.

Then there's the mook rules.  Though this could have just been our generally horrible luck.  But we found that the mook rules don't work well at all.  The problem was that mooks die easier, but they still hit just as hard.  So if you are expecting to wade through waves of mooks you are going to get swarmed then dead.   Where as against bosses we (the pc's I mean) generally were doing the outnumbering and clearly had the edge.

Lastly the exploding dice.  Again could have just been our experience.  But essentially what we decided was this.  It's better to constantly be trying the most ridiculous stuff because most roles in combat needed to explode to do any real damage.  So you may as well just always swing for the fences instead of just trying to hit.  Our issue with that is if you always need to swing for the fences, then that becomes the ordinary at which point it just became boring.

I haven't run/played the Deadlands Reloaded yet, but from my experience with Savage Worlds, it does have hit points, and those are you bennies - as long as you've got bennies, you've got a chance to soak any hits and their related penalties.

Quote from: jcfiala;457331I haven't run/played the Deadlands Reloaded yet, but from my experience with Savage Worlds, it does have hit points, and those are you bennies - as long as you've got bennies, you've got a chance to soak any hits and their related penalties.

That would be true, if bennies weren't also your luck mechanic as well.  It's the same problem many games that have this kind of fate/action point system.  Players are reserved into holding onto them until they really need them and not potentially squander them.  Then they blow the wad near the end of the session because they have them all left.

Quote from: kryyst;457336That would be true, if bennies weren't also your luck mechanic as well.  It's the same problem many games that have this kind of fate/action point system.  Players are reserved into holding onto them until they really need them and not potentially squander them.  Then they blow the wad near the end of the session because they have them all left.

Well, my players held them in different ways - some of my players would spend about half of their bennies on re-rolls, especially for important ones, and save the other half for soak rolls, where one guy just saved all of his for soak rolls and wouldn't use them for anything else.  But in neither case did they blow them near the end of the session that I can remember, although they did fly pretty heavily during the last session of the campaign.

Theoretically you're supposed to be handing them out during play, but I never quite got into that.

I thought the SW Deadlands material had some nice steampunk style elements. But I didn't like the setting itself a great deal. I have no wish to derail this thread however. But I think that it could be used for an enjoyable game. Not for real gritty Westerns though.

Quote from: jcfiala;457337Theoretically you're supposed to be handing them out during play, but I never quite got into that.

And that's the key.  The system works great if the bennies are flowing.  The more the GM hands out the more the characters are going to use them.  But in several games I've played in (with different GM's) the gm's weren't handing out the bennies so the players saved them for 'in case' moments or only spent them out of necessity.

The flow of bennies will greatly effect how your game feels in Savage Worlds as it will shift the game from more gritty to more heroic.  Which as a simple way of adjusting the pacing of a game is nice and simple.  The issue I've always run across is that of GM'ing styles vs player expectations vs setting expectations.

Again though these are just my hang-ups on SW based on my experiences.  Which ultimately has left me not really liking SW, I find the mechanics don't match the theme.  The exploding die wonkiness combined with the bennies thing just doesn't work for me.

Quote from: kryyst;457327My biggest beefs with Savage Worlds is that for the fast action pace that it tries to set we found that it did still get kind of bogged down in keeping track of all your abilities, this could be mitigated with action cards or even cue cards listing your special stuff.

By abilities, are you referring to stuff like Combat Edges?

QuoteAnother issue we all generally had is that stats and skills aren't really linked.  It's purely an aesthetics thing but there seemed be no connection or reason as to why some things were stat based and others were skilled.

The only link between stats and skills is that a stat lets you raise its linked skills for less points.  So, if you have a low Agility, it will cost more points over the long run to raise your Fighting skill, for instance.  I really, really like this as it fixes a major problem I had with skill-based games, where in order to be a good fighter you had to have both a good Agility/Dexterity/whatever in addition to having a good fighting skill.  In Savage Worlds, if you want to be a good Fighter, you just get your Fighting skill up, that's it.  You can play a Strength-based fighter, for instance, with a sucky-ass Agility; this results in you having to spend more points to raise your Fighting skill, which means you wont have as many points to spend on other skills.

I'm a little confused as to what you mean by "why some things are stat based and others were skilled".  Are you talking about how some actions use the stat, while other actions use a skill?  Or do you mean the requirements for Edges?  Or something else?

QuoteNext on the list was the damage mechanic.  We were fine with the downward spiral effect.  The issue was how quickly it kicked in.  There was no real buffer.  Basically you are ok one minute then the pain starts.

Then there's the mook rules.  Though this could have just been our generally horrible luck.  But we found that the mook rules don't work well at all.  The problem was that mooks die easier, but they still hit just as hard.  So if you are expecting to wade through waves of mooks you are going to get swarmed then dead.   Where as against bosses we (the pc's I mean) generally were doing the outnumbering and clearly had the edge.

Well it should be noted that Extra's are not mooks (as the word is defined in, say, Feng Shui or some FATE games), nor are they introduced as such.  Extras are just normal joe-shmoe characters, the majority of NPC's you encounter in a game.  The PC's are Wild Cards, as are NPC's who have "importance to the story", and as such have better survivability than the joe-shmoes as well as a more weighted chance of success.  So when PC's take Wounds, sure they are getting hit by penalties, but at least they aren't dead like most NPC's would be in their shoes.

QuoteLastly the exploding dice.  Again could have just been our experience.  But essentially what we decided was this.  It's better to constantly be trying the most ridiculous stuff because most roles in combat needed to explode to do any real damage.  So you may as well just always swing for the fences instead of just trying to hit.  Our issue with that is if you always need to swing for the fences, then that becomes the ordinary at which point it just became boring.

I'm not really following you again.  Do you mean that you are better off taking major penalties to attack roles for extra damage?

Quote from: kryyst;457361And that's the key.  The system works great if the bennies are flowing.  The more the GM hands out the more the characters are going to use them.  But in several games I've played in (with different GM's) the gm's weren't handing out the bennies so the players saved them for 'in case' moments or only spent them out of necessity.

The flow of bennies will greatly effect how your game feels in Savage Worlds as it will shift the game from more gritty to more heroic.  Which as a simple way of adjusting the pacing of a game is nice and simple.  The issue I've always run across is that of GM'ing styles vs player expectations vs setting expectations.

Again though these are just my hang-ups on SW based on my experiences.  Which ultimately has left me not really liking SW, I find the mechanics don't match the theme.  The exploding die wonkiness combined with the bennies thing just doesn't work for me.

That's my problem with all such 'player currency' type mechanics like bennies, I never spend them. Ever. I am a very bad judge of when is an opportune time to use them. So I just never use them. Which puts me behind the power curve of other players. This is why I prefer systems that don't use player currency. I do realize that this puts me in the minority. Most people seem to love them. Maybe I am just not fated to be a gambler.

Quote from: kryyst;457336That would be true, if bennies weren't also your luck mechanic as well.  It's the same problem many games that have this kind of fate/action point system.  Players are reserved into holding onto them until they really need them and not potentially squander them.  Then they blow the wad near the end of the session because they have them all left.

This is an issue that has come up a lot on Peginc's forums, which I think a majority of responses from the management was something like "well were you giving the players bennies throughout the game session?"  A lot of people with more experience than I seem to suggest that if you don't want players to hoard bennies then to just "let them flow", as it were, handing them out for simple things like roleplaying a hindrance, making a joke, or shuffling the cards.  And since bennies are spent to retry a roll rather than auto-succeed, players can sink most of their bennies on a single roll, which can counteract your influx of extra bennies.

One houserule that has popped up is having both Luck Bennies and Soak Bennies, which can only be used to soak damage.  You start off with the normal amout of Luck Bennies and a customizable amount of Soak Bennies, depending on how lethal you want the game to be.

Quote from: kryyst;457361And that's the key.  The system works great if the bennies are flowing.  The more the GM hands out the more the characters are going to use them.  But in several games I've played in (with different GM's) the gm's weren't handing out the bennies so the players saved them for 'in case' moments or only spent them out of necessity.

The flow of bennies will greatly effect how your game feels in Savage Worlds as it will shift the game from more gritty to more heroic.  Which as a simple way of adjusting the pacing of a game is nice and simple.  The issue I've always run across is that of GM'ing styles vs player expectations vs setting expectations.

Again though these are just my hang-ups on SW based on my experiences.  Which ultimately has left me not really liking SW, I find the mechanics don't match the theme.  The exploding die wonkiness combined with the bennies thing just doesn't work for me.

I like the fact that beenie flow can affect the grittiness (as can the additional gritty combat options.
Player versus GM expectations are key though. You need to set this up front. So if I was playing say a Hellboy syle Weird world war game with SW (a perfect match by the way) I would hand out beenies often and make that obvious to the players. If i were playing a standard Dirty Dozen WW2 squad game (which you can also do with SW though not such a good fit) then I woudl restrict beenies and make that obvious.

Personally, I think a good judge of 'Is SW a suitable system?' is who would direct the movie. So a Roberto Rodrigues or Quentin Tarrintino Western use SW a John Houston or Clint Eastward Western use something else (personally I would use Boot Hill ...)

My apologies if I run over the top of anything that's been said here.

I'm a loooong time Deadlands fan, and a huge Savage Worlds fan for the last couple of years. It's my favorite in-print system, and Deadlands is probably my favorite setting (because I don't get all hung up on the political correctness or so on and so forth).

Maps and minis are not required, but damned if I can remember what the "inches" scale actually breaks down to at the moment...an inch = 5 ft game distance, I think?

Starting characters are pretty competent, but if you restrict the Fate Chip flow, the game can get UGLY fast (your mileage my vary over whether or not this is a good thing).

I used to HATEHATEHATE maps and minis until I played Savage Worlds and found that they actually made the game run faster...while I try to have stuff prepared in advance, I keep a blank grid map and a dry erase marker handy for those impromptu moments.

In the initial Deadlands Reloaded release, a chunk of the "flavor" (especially for each "class") got stripped out...when Matthew Cutter took over as line developer, he started adding some of that stuff back in, trying to balance the "flavor" aspect with the "Fast! Furious! Fun!" aspect.

I haven't personally witnessed a huge imbalance in Edges/Hindrances, although some Hindrances do have mechanical effects while others are mostly role-play effects. On the surface, it sounds like this may hamstring someone who takes the former while another PC has the latter (and then doesn't roleplay them)...if you're faced with that situation, just make it a point to give the first guy a chip every time his Hindrance comes up while the second guy's chips get bled out...he'll learn.

The original Deadlands actively punished Big Damn Heroism since character advancement came from converting left over Fate Chips into Bounty Points (I suffered first hand as a player, burning through my chips being the "front line" for the group, while our sniper advanced rapidly)...this is utterly and completely gone in Reloaded. But again, if you feel like it's not gritty enough, restrict the Fate Chip flow...if that still doesn't work, download the free Crime City supplement from Pinnacle's website and apply their gritty combat rules.

I don't begrudge anyone who has stuck with the old system, it's still pretty damn great and I would play it in a heartbeat (and strongly consider running it if someone insisted), but the ease of GMing Savage Worlds will have me defaulting to that every time.

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;457403Maps and minis are not required, but damned if I can remember what the "inches" scale actually breaks down to at the moment...an inch = 5 ft game distance, I think?

1" approximately equals 2 yards, or six feet.  The reasoning I think they give is that makes the scale equal to an average person's height, i.e., between 5 and 6 feet.

Anyone played or run the Pirates of the Spanish Main SW? Its been gathering dust on my shelf for years. Been looking for an opportunity to run it. Anyone have insight on how well it plays?

About Fate Chips / Bennies: Of course, I'll try to remember giving them out, but at least when we start playing, I'll probably have enough trouble keeping all the basic rules straight in my head. Therefore, I'll encourage my players to tell me when they think they or their fellow players have earned a Fate Chip. I hope this'll also have the side effect of encouraging stunts and general cinematic shenanigans.

Wound penalties / downward spiral: I'll at least try running the game as written first before I start thinking about house rules. However, isn't it trivially easy to just ignore the Shaken penalties or add one or more "+/-0 wound levels"?

Quote from: Todtsteltzer;457523Wound penalties / downward spiral: I'll at least try running the game as written first before I start thinking about house rules. However, isn't it trivially easy to just ignore the Shaken penalties or add one or more "+/-0 wound levels"?

Shaken is a rather important mechanic to the game, so I wouldn't recommend ignoring it.  I have heard people adding more wound levels, but that has the boring side-affect of stretching combat out longer than it needs to be, especially with high-Toughness characters.  One house-rule people have is to just remove the wound penalties altogether; I think the game is able to handle that just fine, but I would also recommend you rework the Incapacitation table a little or people might never go down (see the the Raise entry on the Incapacitation table for what I mean).

If you need help understanding Shaken better, please feel free to PM me with questions.

I've heard of some people replacing the Shaken's "can't perform any action except half move" with "can act, but all actions receive a -2 penalty".  If you go with this method, I would highly recommend that the -2 penalty does not affect free actions, otherwise the Spirit roll to recover from Shaken would also get hit by the penalty, making people stay Shaken for longer.

Quote from: islan;457531If you need help understanding Shaken better, please feel free to PM me with questions.

Thanks, but I do understand! I'm at work and don't have my books with me (of course), so I was basically just talking out of my ass. ;)

As I said, I'll run the game as written at first and introduce house rules at a later date should we ever need them. Also, the Shaken / wound mechanic didn't bother me personally - this was just in response to another poster here!

Quote from: Todtsteltzer;457539Thanks, but I do understand! I'm at work and don't have my books with me (of course), so I was basically just talking out of my ass. ;)

As I said, I'll run the game as written at first and introduce house rules at a later date should we ever need them. Also, the Shaken / wound mechanic didn't bother me personally - this was just in response to another poster here!

My only problem with the RAW combat rules to be honest is that there is no attack of opportunity option. So if you are playing with minis characters can run across your field of fire there is no base rule to target them. This is a side effect of the movement system running in full movement in initiaitive order.
I did work out a tactical movement optional system for use in combats where in close

Quote from: jibbajibba;457541My only problem with the RAW combat rules to be honest is that there is no attack of opportunity option. So if you are playing with minis characters can run across your field of fire there is no base rule to target them. This is a side effect of the movement system running in full movement in initiaitive order.
I did work out a tactical movement optional system for use in combats where in close

In SavW you get a free attack on someone when they Withdraw From Combat, so long as they were adjacent to you.  If you are referring to "not being able to shoot at someone as they run from cover to cover", that's what the Hold rules are for.  I personally hate AoO's as they are described in D&D 3e, but that's all up to personal taste.

Quote from: islan;457543In SavW you get a free attack on someone when they Withdraw From Combat, so long as they were adjacent to you.  If you are referring to "not being able to shoot at someone as they run from cover to cover", that's what the Hold rules are for.  I personally hate AoO's as they are described in D&D 3e, but that's all up to personal taste.

Hm.. I could swear the Combat Reflexes edge - or another edge - gave you a free attack when someone ran up to or by you, but I'm away from my books and don't remember it clearly.

Quote from: jcfiala;457562Hm.. I could swear the Combat Reflexes edge - or another edge - gave you a free attack when someone ran up to or by you, but I'm away from my books and don't remember it clearly.

You're thinking about the First Strike Edge.  And while it exists in the game, it is reserved to an Edge, and not an inherit rule in the game.

I played original Deadlands and found the rules flavorful but cumbersome, what with the dice, chips, cards, and what have you.

I gave Savage Worlds a try and found it way too tactical to my taste.

I skimmed the Deadlands Reloaded rules and was dismayed to see that most of the flavor from the various supernatural powers had been reduced to window dressing.

Quote from: jibbajibba;457541My only problem with the RAW combat rules to be honest is that there is no attack of opportunity option. So if you are playing with minis characters can run across your field of fire there is no base rule to target them. This is a side effect of the movement system running in full movement in initiaitive order.
I did work out a tactical movement optional system for use in combats where in close

Well, there is the "Withdrawing From Combat" free attack option...not the same thing, obviously, but close. We have tended to apply that to anyone leaving melee range, whether or not they actually engaged the enemy (essentially a free shot while anyone runs by). The more "cinematic" you want your game to be, the lighter I would go on this rule...(maybe only applying it to Wild Cards, etc) as it definitely does restrict your field of battle more.

Something more like traditional Attacks of Opportunity are there...covered under the First Strike Edge.

Quote from: Dan Davenport;457604I skimmed the Deadlands Reloaded rules and was dismayed to see that most of the flavor from the various supernatural powers had been reduced to window dressing.

I agreed with this, at least somewhat, originally...and began work on porting over my favorite stuff. Then they hired a line developer who felt the same way I did and started doing my work for me...=)

Quote from: islan;457543In SavW you get a free attack on someone when they Withdraw From Combat, so long as they were adjacent to you.  If you are referring to "not being able to shoot at someone as they run from cover to cover", that's what the Hold rules are for.  I personally hate AoO's as they are described in D&D 3e, but that's all up to personal taste.

I dislike 3e AoO rules as well. The hold rules nearly work but you need to have an initiative action to go on hold I think. So in the first round of a fight the opponent who wins initiative even by a single point on the cards he can move 6" and engage with you you don't get to shoot him after he's run the first 10 yards.

So take this example.
Bob and Frank stand in the dusty St Antonio street. Bob is holding a loaded pistol Frank has a shovel. (We have already established that Bob did not 'get the drop' on Frank). They draw initiative Bob gets a Jack but Frank gets a Queen. Frank can now move 12 yards and strike Bob with a shovel before Bob can shoot him.

All I did was say that you can switch to a tactical movement option when this matters so now the guy with Queen moves an inch (2 yards) for each initiative point they get above the next guy in the stack so in this case he moves an inches (2 yards) then Bob can shoot.  If Frank had beaten Bob by a clear 6 points he could have closed and attacked. You can extend this for the whole movement stack.
In effect each inch of movement 'costs' a point of initiative.

I suggested that on the Peginc boards and the rules mongers got very upset :) they are a bit protective.

Quote from: jibbajibba;457636So take this example.
Bob and Frank stand in the dusty St Antonio street. Bob is holding a loaded pistol Frank has a shovel. (We have already established that Bob did not 'get the drop' on Frank). They draw initiative Bob gets a Jack but Frank gets a Queen. Frank can now move 12 yards and strike Bob with a shovel before Bob can shoot him.

All I did was say that you can switch to a tactical movement option when this matters so now the guy with Queen moves an inch (2 yards) for each initiative point they get above the next guy in the stack so in this case he moves an inches (2 yards) then Bob can shoot.  If Frank had beaten Bob by a clear 6 points he could have closed and attacked. You can extend this for the whole movement stack.
In effect each inch of movement 'costs' a point of initiative.

I suggested that on the Peginc boards and the rules mongers got very upset :) they are a bit protective.

Huh.

I like that, actually. The biggest downside I see is that it'll slow things down a bit, so I would probably only allow it with Wild Cards, for instance (and ignore it altogether in more "High Action/Cinematic" games)...but for a somewhat more dangerous battlefield, that's pretty neat.

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;457638Huh.

I like that, actually. The biggest downside I see is that it'll slow things down a bit, so I would probably only allow it with Wild Cards, for instance (and ignore it altogether in more "High Action/Cinematic" games)...but for a somewhat more dangerous battlefield, that's pretty neat.

I find if you only use it when it's tactically critical then it works fine. Its a bit like switching to Matrix style bullet time when it all gets critical :)

I have no problem with minis, battlemats, dice, cards or tokens I just find all at once very fiddly.

Fast Furious Fun?

In game play maybe but in terms of set up and pack up time I'm afraid not.

I do love card initiative with the Joker though. The idea that you can act whenever is just awesome.

Quote from: Ian Warner;457642I have no problem with minis, battlemats, dice, cards or tokens I just find all at once very fiddly.

Fast Furious Fun?

In game play maybe but in terms of set up and pack up time I'm afraid not.

I do love card initiative with the Joker though. The idea that you can act whenever is just awesome.

I don't use minis usually but when I have played with all this stuff in other GMs games its not hard. They usually have the main locations printed out on inch square paper or just use a marker on a dry wipe sheet. Can get fiddly with lots of minis in play but because there is less book keeping to track on the stus of each piece in play combats run through pretty fast.

Quote from: jibbajibba;457636So take this example.
Bob and Frank stand in the dusty St Antonio street. Bob is holding a loaded pistol Frank has a shovel. (We have already established that Bob did not 'get the drop' on Frank). They draw initiative Bob gets a Jack but Frank gets a Queen. Frank can now move 12 yards and strike Bob with a shovel before Bob can shoot him.

Yeah, but ... isn't that the same in all nearly all roleplaying games?  I know HackMaster Basic does tick-based combat like the one you are suggesting, but that's definitely a level of detail I don't really care for.

Quote from: Dan Davenport;457604I played original Deadlands and found the rules flavorful but cumbersome, what with the dice, chips, cards, and what have you.

True, but I handed some of the job of resolving all the stuff to another player. In combat, for example, there are a lot of rolls to be made. Once a player declared his action and rolled to hit, my "sub-GM" helped resolve the mechanical results while I went on to the next player...

Seanchai

Quote from: kryyst;457092As in the system derived from D&D OGL.  But I find it feels less like OGL then Mutants and Masterminds does.  

Ace's and Eights is NOT derived from d20. It is a completely new system. I just wanted to throw that out there. Seriously, the only thing close is the names of the stats. Otherwise I am hard-pressed to find anything that makes A&8 seem to be derived from d20.

As for SW and miniatures, I've been running the system for several years now,  having run Runepunk, Bioshock, Necropolis 2021, Hellfrost, and a few generic horror and fantasy games. I have never, ever needed miniatures and maps. They're optional.

It is also possible to do gritty games with the system. Realms of Cthulhu is proof of that. It just altered the way Bennies are used and Soak Rolls are made and suddenly it is a very deadly, gritty system. it made some other changes, but those are the big ones.

It's a system that is easy to customize to the needs of the campaign, perhaps more so than a lot of other games I've played and/or run, and I've been doing this for 27 years now. So if you want to emulate a genre a few minor tweaks and you have it (exhibit A: the various setting books put out by different publishers are totally compatible, yet small tweaks fit the game to the genre).

-=Grim=-

Quote from: GrimJesta;457890Ace's and Eights is NOT derived from d20. It is a completely new system. I just wanted to throw that out there. Seriously, the only thing close is the names of the stats. Otherwise I am hard-pressed to find anything that makes A&8 seem to be derived from d20.

Yes, that's basically right. You could only say they're related in the absolute broadest sense of the word.  I think A&8s might have some D20 design-influence, in that they generally borrowed stuff that works very well there.

RPGPundit

Had fun with Deadlands back in the day but combat was too slow. Enjoy Savage worlds but these days I'm more into Space 1889 type play for that period and use the Savage Worlds Space 1889: Red Sands instead. Will eventually get Deadlands Reloaded if I get a hunkering for Deadlands again. The new catalog book for DR looks interesting, not sure how useable it is outside of Deadlands though.

Not played The Flood yet, but liked what I saw of the free download.

Savage Worlds can be made more gritty, fewer to no bennies, trim edges down etc. there's an example of this in the free Crime City / Moscow Connection download(s).
http://peginc.com/downloads.html

Took me years to really try out Savage Worlds, the Explorer's Edition did it for me. $10 full color corebook. The free test drive rules + lots of free adventures help too.

I think The Savage Worlds of Soloman Kane is an excellent S&S game. Sadly, I already have an S&S game I really dig and a back up and a back up for my back up. I love the book though, and I do like the mechanics.  I'll probably run the game at some point if I ever get the urge to do something with the time period.  
I have to say, though, that judging by the SK book and Slipstream, I could do without the "plot point" campaigns.